Spin-textured Chern bands in AB-stacked transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers
Significance The long-wavelength moiré superlattices in twisted two-dimensional (2D) structures have emerged as a highly tunable platform for strongly correlated electron physics. In this work, we reveal the displacement field–induced topological moiré bands in AB-stacked transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) heterobilayer M o T e 2 / W S e 2 . Valley-contrasting Chern bands with nontrivial spin texture are formed from interlayer hybridization between M o T e 2 and W S e 2 bands of nominally opposite spins. The general mechanism for band inversion we uncovered in AB-stacked TMD bilayers is quite robust and can be applied to other material combinations as well. Our study establishes a recipe for creating topological bands in AB-stacked TMD bilayers in general, which provides a highly tunable platform for realizing quantum-spin Hall and interaction-induced quantum anomalous Hall effects.